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The Australian Baseball League Season 15
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Re: The Australian Baseball League Season 15
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ablprop
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01/29/09 09:18 PM
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Ozzie Smith sat on the stage and looked out upon the gathered dignitaries. Bill Klem was there, the league's first chief umpire. Ugly John Hamburger, twice manager of the Cooktown Sharkbait but now sensibly retired, sat next to Klem. Funny to see them so chummy, as they'd had their share of screaming matches. Back behind those two were some of the former players, guys like Andre Dawson, Terry Pendleton, and Andy Van Slyke. Great players all, but none had gotten a spot up here on the stage. Ozzie wondered if he was really better than those guys, or was it just a trick of the mathematics that had him here and them down there? Pendleton had only a few weeks earlier accepted the job as manager of the Urapunga Nature Boys, one of the two least successful franchises in league history. The other played in the stadium right behind him. Ozzie's Kingoonya Goonyees would face Pendleton's Urapunga club a dozen times in the season to come. Maybe Pendleton sitting down there and Ozzie up here would give the slick-fielding former thirdbaseman that extra juice he'd need to will his team over Ozzie's Goonyees. Well, anyway, it is what it is. Make the best of it.
Ozzie would speak second, after the surprise speaker for Doc Crandall, Smith's former teammate Les Lancaster. At the end of Season Eight, the season in which Doc's life came to an end in the stadium in whose shadow they sat, Lancaster had written a book, some said a crazy book, in which he told a tale about "escaping" from the League, about learning that it wasn't real, that it was all some kind of a game cooked up in someone's head. About the Sun saying "100 watts." That it was all a put-up job. And then something happened, something that changed Lancaster, told him that, maybe, he was just as real as whatever it was that ran, or thought it ran, this thing they called the ABL.
Well, everyone pretty much forgot about all that craziness once Season Nine started. It didn't help you throw a curveball, or hit one, so what good was it? Les Lancaster, never much of a pitcher anyway, drifted into history. Until now. Somehow, he'd gotten himself back in it. What would he say? Would he just thank everyone on behalf of his late manager? Would he apologize?
Les Lancaster strode past Ozzie and stood before the podium. There was a smattering of polite applause. Ozzie could almost feel the crowd holding its breath. What would Lancaster say?
"We," he began, and the microphone squealed its displeasure. Somewhere, someone fiddled with the volume. Lancaster began again. "We all know why we're here. Doc Crandall was the-"
"Whaddya mean we all know? How can we know anything?" a voice sang out from the crowd, "According to you, we're not even real!" It was Gary Carter, former player and manager, Lancaster's bullpen catcher for many a game, and someone featured prominently in Lancaster's book. Everyone turned around to look at Carter, standing and shouting from the back row. Everyone except Ugly John Hamburger. Ugly John had shipped Carter off to Kingoonya after Season One, after Carter had won the award that now bears his name. Later, Hamburger was "reassigned" when Carter became player-manager of the Cooktown Sharkbait. Then, when things didn't work out for Carter as a manager, Hamburger had returned, and released his one-time pupil. Hamburger knew Carter's voice and had no interest in seeing his face again.
Lancaster went on, "You will choose to believe or not to believe. It doesn't matter to me."
"Stop quoting that crazy book, Lancaster," Carter shouted from the back row. But Lancaster went on.
"You will continue to exist regardless, because the creation, whatever the creation is, now exists of its own. That which has risen from The Mound will not perish."
"But we don't exist. We're not real! You said so yourself!"
"Reality is . . . what it is."
"Stop talking in riddles!" Carter shouted, "Just tell us what you believe!"
"I believe . . . I believe I am finished here," Lancaster said, and walked off the stage. Silence all around.
"Well, there you go, gentlemen. The great Les Lancaster. I hope you all see, once and for all, what a nutcase-"
And with that, Ugly John Hamburger stood up, turned around, and pointed a grizzled finger at his former catcher. "Carter," he said calmly, "will you, for once in your life, just shut up!" And the crowd broke out in loud applause. Ugly John sat down and nodded to Ozzie Smith.
Ozzie stood up and went to the podium.
"Um, well, I, I'm pretty sure I'm real," Ozzie Smith said, "because right now, I've got one hell of a headache," and the crowd laughed out loud.
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